Replica topological order in quantum mixed states and quantum error correction

Abstract

Topological phases of matter offer a promising platform for quantum computation and quantum error correction. Nevertheless, unlike its counterpart in pure states, descriptions of topological order in mixed states remain relatively under-explored. Our work give two definitions for replica topological order in mixed states, which involve $n$ copies of density matrices of the mixed state. Our framework categorizes topological orders in mixed states as either quantum, classical, or trivial, depending on the type of information that can be encoded. For the case of the toric code model in the presence of decoherence, we associate for each phase a quantum channel and describes the structure of the code space. We show that in the quantum-topological phase, there exists a postselection-based error correction protocol that recovers the quantum information, while in the classical-topological phase, the quantum information has decohere and cannot be fully recovered. We accomplish this by describing the mixed state as a projected entangled pairs state (PEPS) and identifying the symmetry-protected topological order of its boundary state to the bulk topology. We discuss the extent that our findings can be extrapolated to $n \to 1$ limit.